Rock City jumps on the band Wagons

March 28, 2014 11:26 am 0 comments Views:

Wagons – Acid Rain and Sugar Cane will be the sixth record for the lanky six piece
Source: HeraldSun

All the latest indie music news with a Melbourne focus

Muchachas and muchachos, it’s time for a rock tease. Wagons have just announced an Australian tour titled Acid Rain and Sugar Cane, incidentally the name of their sixth record.

The inimitable Man in Brown, Henry Wagons, opened up about their hopes and dreams for said record, which has been produced by former Bad Seed Mick Harvey.

“There are a lot of drinking songs and a lot of driving songs…but, for safety reasons, never the two shall meet!!” says Wagons. “Throughout a lot of the album the whole band and Mick got hooked on shots of Baileys with a shot of coffee. What is that called? Irish Coffee Concentrate?”

There weren’t any touchstone talks before they got down to the nitty gritty of making the album, instead “most of the conversations we had were about the merits of only having one child, seasonal booze choices and the state of the freeway system that got us all down to the Peninsula each studio day.”

Recorded in the chief Wagons studio Goldview in Mount Martha, “We have aimed for the sky on a few of these numbers. Certain tracks have a full force Morricone-esque orchestral arrangements. We’ve utilised the option of some cinematic epic punctuation to the songs to help things unfold,” he says.

“It’s dark, fun, a little drunk and brash. I think it’s a rockin’, badass ‘Vegas, tipsy, party record. I can tell you everyone in the band, including myself, think it’s the best thing we have ever done!!” he declares.
An artist claiming their latest album is their finest ever? Inconceivable.

Harvey, who has been channelling his inner Serge Gainsbourg in the last year, gave Our Henry pointers in how to let a story tell itself.
“He had a huge impact on how I sang on this record too. We had lots of conversations about how to deliver the narratives properly, without getting carried away in a sea of rock n’ roll grunts and affectations. I was so happy to have him there throughout as a luxury sounding board. More often than not, Mick would offer the most amazing and pertinent observations to help bring the arrangements to life and give our schizophrenic tales some kind of coherence.”

The lanky six-piece will be moving away from the cult-gone-bad shtick on the album cover. “Our ’09 album The Rise and Fall of Goodtown was a cult in its infancy, still ploughing the fields and building the log cabin mess hall. Rumble, Shake and Tumble was the cult becoming rich and corrupt and slightly twisted. Acid, Rain and Sugar Cane is the band breaking loose from our corrupted followers, stealing the minuscule cult proceeds that are left after its horrifying news-worthy dissolution, then hopping in a fast van together, riding toward the horizon and trying to enjoying ourselves before imminent jail-time.”

That fast van will be transporting them around Australia on the aforementioned tour. Mention of this changes the dynamic of the interview. Henry becomes introspective and overly humble:

“We’ll be dropping constant glory bombs.”
Another rock tease.

They’re flying over a special support act named Johnny Fritz. “We have some mutual vagabond friends in Nashville. He was one of those guys everyone seemed to tell me to go and see, telling me I’d love him. Then I told them to let me be the judge,” he says, with faux gruffness.
“I finally caught him multiple times at a SXSW. I loved him. He played 14 times. I didn’t really have the option to not see him. He has a very wicked, surreal and hilarious twist on traditional outlaw country, which you may realise, is something I am quite partial to. I am supremely confident that anyone who likes my band will also enjoy some of Jonny’s moves,” he says, finishing up the presentation of a very strong case in favour of that cat Fritz.

On a more personal level, Henry and his wife Melvis had a kitten recently. Yep, they’re now proud parents of little Casper. NB: Casper is a boy, a real human boy, I’m sorry this clunky stream-of-unconsciousness got off track.

Wagons muses on the awesome-awful-awesome experience of being a proud parent and guardian of a new infant.
“It’s the greatest ride ever. There is no going back… and I’m loving holding on to the runaway roller-coaster car as it hurtles out of the mouth of Luna Park and into St Kilda traffic.”

Acid Rain and Sugar Cane will be out May 16 through Spunk.

Barwon Club, Geelong, June 6, The HiFi, city, June 7, Karova Lounge, June 8, wagonsmusic.com

Drone Flying Solo
If you’re joining us late, Gareth Liddiard is NOT breaking up The Drones.
The rumour spread quickly through Golden Plains two weeks ago after a roadie misinterpreted his post-show banter. Chinese whispers and all that.

The following IS true: Liddiard will perform every Sunday in May at Workers Club to the 200 capacity room with a stellar support cast worthy of a Robert Altman film: BJ Morriszonkle, Lower Plenty, Sarah Retalick (Jimmy Tait) and Teeth & Tongue (solo). Each week is hosted by The Magic and Philosophy of Sunny Leunig.

First the whimsy then the whaaaaaaamp across your face.

Worker’s Club, 51 Brunswick St, Fitzroy. Sun in May, 7.30pm. oztix.com.au

Sidewinder Wakes Tonight
If you’re like Rock City then a little part of you is still playing the world’s smallest violin, lamenting the loss of Bridezilla. Well chin up, champ, Holiday Sidewinder is back on her own-some with new single Carousel and it exceeds expectations.

Woody organs, an off-kilter vocal and a chorus that seems like it’ll never come…until it slays you by swinging low sweet chariot, this is an artist that will have strong word of mouse in the second half of 2014.

Sidewinder’s hopes for her debut solo album are as follows: “I’m hoping to make a record in 2014 that will increase the national birth rate by at least 1%, have security guards whistling to themselves in a quiet hour and factory workers humming in the line. I hope all of the singles become wedding songs and karaoke classics. I hope it will be a musical landscape upon which to dwell in thought and prayer. I hope you dance. I hope you well up and then beam with joy. But hey, I don’t ask for much."

facebook.com/holiday.sidewinder

THIS WEEKEND’S MUST SEE THREE

THE BOMBAY ROYALE
There aren’t a lot of wax-sealed guarantees in life. Moronic phone companies and Luke Bruest kicking goals and earbuds getting tangled up are a couple. Similarly, The Bombay Royale putting on a spectacular show. They refuse to play stinkers. See them backed by The Harpoons and DJ Manchild.

Curtin Bandroom, 29 Lygon St, Fri, 8pm, johncurtinhotel.com

SEX ON TOAST & JOHN CITIZEN
I never “got” the Donny Benet thing. To me he is just a smudged facsimile of Louie Austen and Frank Bennett. The Northside Records-endorsed Sex On Toast are the real fake deal, an explosion of 1980s yacht-rock and R’n’B. and synth-funk, this Friday they launch their s/t album.

Northcote Social Club, 301 High St, Fri, 8.30pm, $ 12

THE SCIENTISTS & DRUNK MUMS
Howler has the 2014 Rising Star Award in the bag. They’ve just announced shows for St Vincent and Washington (sold out!) and this weekend Kim Salmon, James Baker and the legendary Scientists will leave the pace in tatters. Bittersweet Kicks and Drunk Mums are along for the ride, too. Alchemy.

Howler, Brunswick, Sat, 8pm, $ 44.90, h-w-l-r.com

Going at a Clip – 8 New Music Videos Under The Mikeyscope

Tenanbaums – The Paper Kites
Best bit: It’s folk music that you care about.
Weird bit: Around 2 minute mark when the hero of the clip goes off to do something dark in a dark park. Looks like a transaction of sorts? Or a break-up? Fark.
Earworm bit: “Call them radiant/ Call them mother’s eyes”

Suckerpunch – Kingswood
Best bit: Cherry Bar’s reassuring red curtains.
Weird bit: Air guitar Mecca worship at 2 minute mark.
Earworm bit: “[falsetto] Tell me what you do for love”

Plastic – Drunk Mums
Best bit: The steady increase in bubble-wrap-as-clothes
Weird bit: broken bass string at 58 second mark. Also the bubble wrap biting juuuuuuust as the song ends.
Earworm bit: “You aaaaare-eee-arrre a piece of PLASTIC.”

Turkish Prison – Ancient City
Best bit: The whole clip is quite intoxicating. Also the EP (from Midnight Juggernauts’ Andrew Szekeres) comes with “a cüstom box of incense and Tantric meditation manual to guide you on your trip to the Kingdom of Axum and beyond”
Weird bit: His wiggly butt is reminiscent of the kid in Where The Wild Things Are book.
Earworm bit: “[soothing] Ahhhh, ahhh ahhhhhhh”

Strange Colores – Avey Tare’s Slasher Flicks
Best bit: When the first guitar buzzes on in. This album is ace too.
Weird bit: The epilepsy. All of the epilepsy.
Earworm bit: Whatever they’re singing in the fast bit that keeps saying the word “colore”

High For You – Little Bastard
Best bit: The levitating upside down head outside the driver’s window at 24 seconds.
Weird bit: The levitating upside down head outside the driver’s window at 24 seconds.
Earworm bit: “Tonight I know I’ll find a way for us to pretend” and “Well I’m quitting the smokes the second time this year.”

Fresh Strawberries – Franz Ferdinand
Best bit: The fact that a director convinced someone to pay him film a band milling around not doing much for three minutes. Well played sir.
Weirdest bit: Berocca moment at 1.58. Your point exactly?
Earworm bit: None of it. Franz Ferdinand are doing an INXS, slowly petering out on each album without bringing anything new to the table.